The Quest for Customer Intelligence to Support Marketing Decisions: A Knowledge-Based Framework

Abstract

The quest for customer intelligence to create value in marketing has highlighted the significance of the research focus of this paper. Customer intelligence, which is defined as understandings or insights resulting from the application of analytic techniques, plays a significant role in the survival and prosperity of enterprises in the knowledge-based economy. In this light, the paper has developed a framework of customer intelligence to support marketing decisions through the lens of knowledge-based theory. The proposed framework aims at supporting enterprises to identify the right customer data for the right customer intelligence corresponding with the right marketing decisions. In this light, four types of customer intelligence are clarified including product-aware intelligence, customer DNA intelligence, customer experience intelligence, and customer value intelligence. The applications of customer intelligence are also elucidated with relevant marketing decisions to maximize value creation. To illustrate the framework, an example is presented. The importance and originality of this study are that it responds to changes in customer intelligence in the age of massive data and covers multifaced aspects of marketing decisions.